I Remember My Dad
by Zarius
Summary: The prisoner in the Sector J detention complex gives Colonel K a headache every ten minutes. He decides DM is needed, and sometimes that's perfectly OK (tag for "Melted")


**DANGER MOUSE:**

 **I REMEMBER MY DAD**

 **WRITTEN BY ZARIUS**

 **(contains spoilers for "Melted")**

* * *

Colonel K kept his eyes trained on the phone, waiting for it to ring.

Ten minutes had elapsed; it was bound to go off at some point.

The incessant ringing, the call for him to answer, the hesitation to do just that and waste his time calming the Department J detention crew only for them to ring back approximately another ten minutes later.

This time he was keen to make this the last call, he knew exactly who he'd bring into this.

The tenth minute passed. The phone rang.

He answered.

"I see...yes, yes I heard you the ninth time, the eighth time, every time before that. I don't intend for this to last another sixty minutes, I'm sending my top mouse in. Colonel out"

Colonel K put down the phone, and set up activating his holographic emitter.

He interrupted DM and Penfold in the middle of a thoroughly draining session which was requiring the two to tap into the full capacity of their mental prowess.

"Danger Mouse, this is an emergency, Department J can't keep her restrained, she's going on and on about wanting to see her father" the Colonel said, shaking his head in dismay as all the cries for help on his end came flooding to his memory.

"Not Colonel, I've almost cracked my most intense assignment yet" said DM as he informed Penfold he believed it to be Col. Mustard in the study hall with the booby trapped chandelier.

The Colonel's next few words made it crystal clear this was no game.

"DM, she _needs_ you"

Danger Mouse sighed, stood up, stretched his arms, sprayed his odious armpits with a fresh spot of colon, and made his way down to the Juvenile detention sector of the Danger Agency, Penfold following him.

"Chief? Are you sure you're up to this? You know how she reacts around you..." Penfold began.

"I've had more than enough experience with the Danger Babies to know how to bring a temperamental child to order"

"But she's not just a temperamental child to you is she Chief? She's something else"

"Whatever are you rattling on about?" DM asked as he placed his Agency security pass into the lock mechanism at the entrance to the Sector J vault.

"That duet didn't get noticed as just a fanciful bit of Christmas entertainment by the masses, some people read a little too clearly into it, Squawkencluck in particular. She hasn't stopped yapping about it to anyone within hearing distance at the canteen. Why else would the Colonel insist you come around specifically?"

Danger Mouse refused to answer, he was fixated on the problem, and what he could offer as a solution.

"Chief, it's OK, you don't need to feel bad about it, it normally does someone a world of good to know they're needed"

He approached the prisoner, who was seated on the edge of a seat in an otherwise almost empty cell, a small black board next to her with a piece of broken chalk. Written on the black board was a photo, and above the photo, both a message and a question.

" _Where are you?"_

Danger Mouse used his pass on the lock. The infra-red scanners analysed him before granting him access. The Plexiglas barrier slid down and he stepped inside. Penfold looked on apprehensively as the barrier was raised again to prevent the prisoner from contemplating a quick escape.

Danger Mouse sat beside the prisoner and put an arm over her shoulder.

"Dawn?"

"...Mouse?"

"Talk to me"

Dawn pointed to the blackboard and the message.

There was a photo next to it.

DM looked at it.

It was a picture of a much younger Dawn with her hands covering her eyes, her father, the nefarious criminal Augustus P Crumhorn was behind her urging whoever had taken the photo to remain calm and not breathe a word of his presence to his child.

"You're asking where your fonder memories went, not your dad"

"I know where my Dad is, you sent him away into space"

"Yes, we did...entirely for the greater good, he would have enslaved the world otherwise"

"Everyone I meet is cracked, damaged, in need of control, we think the time is right for it" Dawn insisted.

"You can't decide for the world when it's time to restrain itself, even if you could, you can't always keep your eye on the clock to know whether or not the time is now or that the time is even up. Everyone moves forward, everyone grows older while new people come into the world who have to learn the same lessons, it's all part of the most reliable memory the world has, its own lifetime, reinterpreted for every fresh generation. Some can understand it early in life, and some are made to"

Dawn was barely listening; she continued to call out for her father in distant whispers that took Danger Mouse some time to pick up audibly.

He soon heard it enough times to tell when Dawn was teetering on the edge of the abyss.

"The Colonel said you needed me Dawn, and try as I might to keep things professional, I just can't bring myself to simply detach myself entirely either. I feel good that you need me, and a friend told me it was perfectly fine to feel that way"

Penfold gave the Chief resounding thumbs up.

"Dawn, we shared something significant under the glistening northern lights, let me know what I can share with you now, let me know if anything I said to you today mattered, because you matter so much to me already"

Dawn wiped the tears from her eyes and rested her head gently on his lap in a snug position; Danger Mouse's hands ran firmly along her puffy purple pigtails.

"I want you to remember my dad the way I do, I want you to carry what he meant to me everywhere, so that it may distract and frustrate you when he comes back and you pit your witless mind against his..."

"...Dawn I don't think you've quite got the hang of respecting the people that care about you" DM insisted.

"..Are you going to honour this request or not?" she said, quick to anger.

"Better know when to button it Chief"

Danger Mouse sighed and nodded.

"I'll honour it Dawn, you have my word" he said.

Dawn smiled back at him.

"You smell good" she said, acknowledging his colon.

"Just get on with it"

Dawn made herself comfortable on DM's lap once more, DM calmly and lovingly stroked the back of her head with his right hand, and she carried on.

"I remember my dad putting others down just to build me up

I remember my dad's look of joy when he gave me my first pup

I remember my dad thought he'd lost me and came apart at the seems

I remember my dad and I playing 'weddings', between me and the plush toy of my dreams.

I remember my dad at a picnic; he mistook the dog food for honey.

I remember my dad putting real cash up for grabs in games of monopoly.

I remember my dad raising his voice only when I was naughty

I remember my dad's look of confusion when I demanded a brick house made of money.

I remember my dad say every day we trail behind is a day we vow to march on.

And I remember my dad pointing to the stars to tell me 'that's where we come from"

Danger Mouse waited for more to come, but Dawn had finally given in the exhaustion of her emotional outbursts, and she fallen asleep in his arms.

He sat there, unable, and unwilling, to move, keeping her request in his thoughts.

He looked back at Penfold, who looked particularly choked up.

DM looked down at the bitter angel that was seemingly at peace, feeling quite content himself at much his promises were valued, and he wondered if, somewhere among the distant stars, Crumhorn was doing all he can to remember _her_.


End file.
